Hidden Beneath the Surface
by Rosie2009
Summary: Arthur's been feeling really confused about his relationship with Sadie Adler. Mary-Beth happens to be the one that makes it all come to a head. Featuring Arthur Morgan x Sadie Adler and onesided Mary-Beth x Arthur Morgan.


"Hi, Arthur!" Arthur suddenly felt arms wrap around his neck tightly and he flinched a bit in shock.

"Mary-Beth?" he wheezed, grabbing an arm gently with a calloused hand and trying to carefully pry it away from his throat.

"Who else could it be?" The appendages finally released in their choking grip around his neck and he was permitted breath again. He turned in his chair to look at the girl standing behind him.

Her cheeks were rosier than usual, and her eyes had a look to them that wasn't what he would consider usual in the least.

"Well, I don't know. I was just guessin', I reckon." Mary-Beth leaned in close to his face, and he winced from the stench of alcohol flowing freely with each puff of breath, subtly attempting to avoid breathing in any of it.

"I was going to ask you, Arthur, if you'd like to dance with me," the girl questioned, a flirtatious grin blossoming on her face. He furrowed his brow a bit, leaning away from her with a chuckle.

"I think somebody's done slipped somethin' a little extra into your tea," Arthur shook his head, raising himself from his chair and starting to walk away. He was definitely more than a little bewildered at Mary-Beth's sudden personality change.

Arthur was always aware of her feelings for him. She wasn't exactly as secretive as she liked to think that she was. But she was never like this.

This was just plain uncomfortable. Sure, he liked the ladies thinking that he was something, but not when there wasn't even a slight interest on his behalf.

"Oh, come on… _Please_?" Mary-Beth stumbled over into his path, and he was forced to stop before he ran into her.

He groaned and looked around quickly, trying to spot any other possible sucker for a lady.

Charles was absolutely nowhere to be seen. John was dancing with Abigail. Even Lenny had found somewhere to be that was not in his line of sight.

He rolled his eyes and huffed, looking back to the hopelessly intoxicated girl that was standing unsteadily before him with a very hopeful glint in her eye.

"Sure," he finally conceded, and immediately found her arm linked in his as he was forced to follow along behind the girl.

Arthur huffed and glanced about in desperation, hoping to find some way to save himself from his current predicament.

It wasn't at all like Mary-Beth to drink. She never participated in any of the more alcoholic aspects of their parties and when she did have liquor in her cup, he always noticed that she tried to surreptitiously empty it in a nearby bush after a few swigs.

What he couldn't understand at all was how she ended up drinking any of it, let alone have enough to get intoxicated.

"Now, let's have some fun!" Mary-Beth laughed, grabbing Arthur's shoulders with her hands.

He carefully removed himself from her grasp and rather changed their position by taking her hands in his own.

Arthur then began to lead the dance in time with the music, working to avoid stepping on her feet as she stumbled along with him.

As they made their way around the small clearing of people dancing, a crowd mostly consisting of themselves, Dutch and Molly, and Pearson and Miss Grimshaw, Arthur happened to overhear a rather enlightening conversation unfolding nearby.

"Karen, what did you do to Mary-Beth?" he heard Sadie question harshly, that affected Southern drawl lacing every word as she launched her attack.

"Nothin'. I just loosened her up a bit."

"Don't play dumb with me. You done slipped some liquor into that girl's drink, didn't you?" Sadie growled, and Arthur could hear just how livid she was. More than likely, they'd be putting Karen in the ground tomorrow. Especially if she continued to irk the other woman.

"Well, she was moanin' and groanin' about ol' Arthur again, so I figured I'd help her out. Y'know, give her a little push in the right direction." Arthur could almost see the devilish grin on Karen's face with that statement.

Of course she did that. It was really the only logical explanation for all of this mess that Arthur happened to find himself in the middle of. Karen always had a rather wicked sense of humor.

"More like a shove."

"What do you care anyway? You sweet on 'im, too, or somethin'?" Karen asked. Arthur raised a brow after several beats of silence, wondering exactly what Sadie's lack of a response meant.

It was impossible to deny that he had begun to feel more than friendship for the fiery cowgirl. There was some inevitable attraction he felt toward her. The way she spoke, the way she walked, even the way she got that playful spark in her eyes when she teased him was enough to drive the poor outlaw insane.

"Naw! I'm just lookin' out for the girl. Unlike _you_," Sadie replied with evident venom in her tone along with an edge to it that Arthur couldn't quite place.

"You're no fun, Missus Adler." He then watched as Sadie passed by, her braid swinging softly behind her as she stopped to hang her coat and hat on a hook attached to a nearby wagon.

"It's so nice to be right here. Dancin' with you," Mary-Beth suddenly piped up, distracting him from listening to Sadie and Karen's discussion.

"Yeah. Nice to spend some time with you, too," he told her, uncomfortable beyond belief. He spun her around and when she came back toward him, she drew closer to him than he expected.

"Oh, Arthur. What would make my night perfect is if… Well, if you could kiss me…" Arthur's eyes widened, knowing he needed to get out quickly, as she moved in.

He straightened to his full height as she tried to push her face into his, her lips puckered comically. Arthur would've laughed if it'd been anyone but him in the situation. However, at that moment, it was a bit hard to find humor when it was he himself dragged into the embarrassment of trying to keep a woman that he certainly didn't feel attracted to off of him.

Just as he was preparing to run for his life, a wonderful, heavenly someone interrupted to rescue him from Mary-Beth's unrelenting clutches.

"May I cut in? I need to borrow Mister Morgan for some, uh… Important matters," a voice spoke up and Arthur immediately let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.

Mary-Beth withdrew with a sour expression, glaring drunkenly at the intruder.

"Well, excuse you!" Mary-Beth cried indignantly. Arthur looked at his savior in all of her glory.

There Sadie Adler stood, her blue-green necktie around her neck and a snowy white button-up shirt accentuating the bright color of the scarf. He hadn't felt this much relief in a while. There weren't many situations that could unsettle Arthur, but this was certainly one of the few. Women that he certainly beyond a shadow of a doubt did not feel anything besides friendship for was one of those types of conundrums.

"Yes, excuse me. But I must insist for the betterment of both yourself and him. No offense, I just got to speak with 'im." For a moment, Arthur was sure Mary-Beth was about to scream and yell and make an attempt to do terrible things to Sadie. Judging by the expression covering her face, she assuredly would be doing something aggressive. But he was pleasantly surprised when Mary-Beth regained composure somehow and gave Sadie a calculating look. Or at least, as good of a calculating look as she could muster considering her current state of being.

"Well, fine. Jus' don't keep him long. We're dancin'," she slurred, staring at him with an unnerving, unbridled affection.

Arthur carefully stepped away from the younger girl, trying to ease back away before she could suddenly cling on.

Then, to his shock, Sadie took his hand in her own, almost dragging him along behind her. He suppressed a chuckle at how tightly he was being squeezed. It was humorous but also mildly disturbing. Sadie never had shown any sort of interest in him before. It was a little odd that she'd suddenly start now.

Unless it had been right under his nose the whole time. After all, he had been considered daft and pigheaded for a long time. Maybe he overlooked any signs. Maybe he didn't know what to actually look_ for_.

"You're welcome, Mister Morgan," she told him in a pish-posh voice as she talked around the wad of chewing tobacco in her mouth, trying to mimic Miss Grimshaw and failing miserably. She quickly released his hand from the bone-crushing grip she had it in. He held back a smirk at the light blush dusting her cheeks.

"Thank you kindly, Mrs. Adler," Arthur expressed his gratitude, a casual smile on his face.

"That's Susan to you. Don't compare me to that hooligan," Sadie winked with a smirk, ruining the entire effect as her mirth shined through.

"Well, anyway, I'm grateful."

"Yeah, I figured you would be. Mary-Beth was pretty much smotherin' you after all," Sadie looked at him with an almost jealous and challenging glint in her eye and he couldn't help but grin at her. It was really quite comical for the blonde woman to be so viciously competitive about someone that she didn't even have to worry about.

"She's not normally like that," he spoke. Sadie simply shrugged in response but he could still see the stiffness in her posture as she sat down on the log nearby them, pulling out her knife and fiddling with it as she started picking the dirt from underneath her fingernails.

Arthur stepped over, lowering himself onto the log and facing an opposite view from Sadie. While she was staring at a party of people heartily enjoying themselves, Arthur was relishing the serenity of the lake nearby, little ripples accentuated by the moonlight and the frequently blinking fireflies over the water as the romantic music emanating from Dutch's record player carried out so it surrounded the entire scene with a hazy glow of dreaminess.

The breeze was slightly flowing, and he breathed in deeply, a mix of warm summer air and the scent of hay slightly flowing off of the woman beside him just enough to make him feel the nagging desire for a little more.

"So… What's so interestin' out there on the lake?" Sadie suddenly spoke up, her head tilted slightly to the side so that a fresh wave of hay hit him along with a few strands of loosed hair tickling his cheek. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, and chuckled lowly.

"Well, it's certainly more peaceful than camp," Arthur replied, returning his gaze to the beautiful soft light of the moon.

"But what's so interestin' is what I asked," Sadie challenged, and Arthur could hear the grin in her voice.

"If you turned around, you could see for yourself instead of pesterin' me about it," Arthur told her, shaking his head and knowing that she wouldn't follow along that easy. Her teasing had just begun.

But to his surprise, however, Sadie threw her leg over the log so that she was straddling it and pulled her other leg along as well so that she was facing the same direction as he was.

He watched her as her face shifted from that twinkling sparkle she got whenever she was joking around to a more softened expression that really suited her in some odd way. Her eyes seemed to lose that hard, determined look they always kept in favor of a gaze filled with wonder and amazement.

She was truly stunning. She had never looked so beautiful as she did in that moment and it was all he could do to restrain himself from saying something that'd surely ruin what they had.

He couldn't fall in love with her. It was so against everything. They had both went through too much heartache. With her losing her husband and him losing all that he had. Even if he might be ready for something more between them, that certainly didn't mean that she felt the same.

But they had grown much closer over time. For some reason, she had made more of an effort to be more friendly and sociable towards him, always taking the time to good-naturedly tease him when she got a chance. Whenever he was going to go hunting for the gang, next to Charles, Sadie was the first to volunteer to go with him.

Despite this newfound closeness, he didn't really think she meant anything by it. Her heart undoubtedly belonged to her deceased husband, and unless this was her strange way of coping with his loss by hitting it off with another man, they'd never be anything more than what they were now.

Not that he'd ever take advantage of her emotions like that. He never had anything but respect for the woman, and certainly wouldn't push her into anything.

"It sure is pretty," Sadie softly murmured, her knee gently bumping against his as she repositioned her feet. Arthur smiled tenderly at her as he watched her face.

"Yeah," he agreed, never taking his eyes off of her as he secretly thought to himself that she was the something that was pretty. Beautiful, in fact.

Not too far from them, the music transitioned into more of a slow song instead of the slightly faster-paced waltz. He caught Sadie's sideways glance at him- and thought he spotted a dusting of a slightly darker shade of red covering her cheeks before she moved her head to face the other direction- as the music drifted out to them, truly fitting the mood between the two. However, he also knew that there was someone else that probably thought it fit _her_ and Arthur just as well.

"I am sincerely afraid Mary-Beth's gon' want me to go back and dance with her on that one," Arthur admitted, looking behind him nervously. To his great horror, he could hear Mary-Beth's drunken giggles and calling of his name not too far off. He swallowed and tried to pinpoint exactly where Mary-Beth was at that moment.

"Don't know how I'm avoiding this situation."

"There you are, Arthur!" Mary-Beth suddenly materialized behind him and he suppressed a groan of irritation. "If you're quite done talkin' to 'im, I'll be takin' him back for some more dancin'."

Before he could ponder this train of thought much further, he felt a firm hand on his arm. His head snapped back around in shock as his blue-green gaze met the determined, frightfully irked countenance of Sadie Adler as she spat her tobacco on the ground.

"I'm sorry, Mary-Beth, but me and Arthur are dancing right about now. C'mon, Arthur," Arthur furrowed his brow as he thought this over. She flipped her knife shut and tucked it away in her pocket as she stood up quickly. He shook his head, opening his mouth to speak, but Sadie just looked down at him and extended her arm, offering her hand to help him to his feet.

He stood up and they were both swiftly upon their way.

"Wh- You get back here!" Arthur glanced back but kept following Sadie as she held onto his hand with a death grip. Mary-Beth was attempting to stumble after them, but thankfully Charles intercepted and grabbed her, seemingly trying to keep her distracted. Arthur couldn't help but scornfully question why he couldn't have shown up earlier.

After only a moment, Sadie had turned around to face him, her eyes alight with an emotion that Arthur couldn't exactly identify.

"Mrs. Adler, we don't have to do this. I can dance with Mary-Beth. It ain't that much trouble," Arthur assured her, and to his great surprise, Sadie eyed him with an almost challenging expression.

He froze as she took his other hand and guided them both to rest low on her waist. She never removed her gaze from his own as she ran her hands up his arms and rested them on his biceps.

"First of all, call me Sadie. No more of this Mrs. Adler business," her eyes hardened to accentuate this command. But then her expression relaxed back into that strange look she had only a moment ago. "Now, look, we can't exactly get away from Mary-Beth completely, but she might be sobered up just enough to leave us alone," Sadie informed him.

And then he recognized it. That hopeful glimmer in her eye that she hardly ever let show and that he himself had very rarely seen in her.

So inevitably, he felt himself cave in and practically melt into a big ol' puddle of goo.

"If you're alright with it, then I reckon it's all good," he replied finally, resisting the urge to move his hands up further at a more gentlemanly position instead of having them resting so near dangerous territory. But she had wanted his hands there apparently, so who was he to negate her wishes?

She squeezed his arms reassuringly and moved her hands up to rest on his shoulders. It gave him a small sense of déjà vu with the entire experience with Mary-Beth earlier. But this was definitely not Mary-Beth. This was so much better.

This was Sadie Adler- charmingly rough around the edges, attractively determined, stunningly beautiful, and otherwise an embodiment of nigh perfection in Arthur's eyes.

They carefully moved with the slow, swaying tune of the movement. There was an evident sense of isolation around them as if they were in their own little world. Everyone had migrated to the other side of the camp to listen to Javier's music and to join in the singing that Karen had merrily began.

It was just them.

Which made it nearly impossible not to step outside those friend boundaries. She seemed to be giving him signs that indicated she wanted him to overstep, but how could he be sure? One wrong move and he'd ruin everything. But at the same time, it was only fair to tell her how he felt. It would help him get it off his chest and it would also help to end this entire game of constant helpless infatuation.

He cleared his throat lowly, looking down at the ground between them. It was strangely hard to see due to the fact that their bodies were so closely drawn together.

"Mrs. Adler… Sadie… I have somethin' I feel that I need to confess," Arthur slowly stated. He truly hoped that it wouldn't all be for naught.

"Would that be that you're a terrible dancer?" her brown eyes glinted teasingly. He offered a fleeting smile in response. He couldn't give much more than that, because he was entirely too nervous.

"As true as that may be, it's… somethin' else." Sadie tilted her head slightly, indicating her attentiveness.

"Go 'head."

"I've been," he trailed off, swallowing hard as they, swayed easily. "Been having these overwhelming feelings as of late. And I only felt it right to tell you 'bout 'em. 'Cause they've been 'bout you," Arthur admitted, avoiding Sadie's face and instead focusing on something in the distance.

"I'm terribly afraid that I've began to fall in love with you, Sadie Adler," Arthur finally exposed the root of the entire conversation, assuming that it was time to be a man about it.

"It's not right. And certainly not fair to you. I just knew that the right thing to do would be to tell you so you could be, I don't know… Warned, I s'pose?" Arthur chuckled humorlessly but quieted soon after.

He had done it now. There was no turning back. No way to take back what he had said. At least now she'd know the truth.

But before he knew it, a gentle hand guided his head back to face Sadie's. He had certainly expected some sort of hand contact, but not exactly this particular kind. He looked into her eyes bravely, preparing to face the fire.

There was fire, alright. But not the kind he expected to see. This was a much more preferred, yet scarier sort of fire.

"Arthur Morgan, what if I told you that I may have those same sorta feelings for you?" Sadie spoke, a slight smile tugging at her lips.

Almost immediately after that admission, Arthur was hyper-aware of their nearness. His nose almost touching hers and their lips only a few inches apart. Her fingers were threaded into the short, thick hair on the back of his head before his locks met the leathery surface of his hat.

Warm breaths of the sweet scent of her chewing tobacco washed over him with every exhale and the intense expression on her face only served to bring greater attention to her beautiful chocolate eyes.

He almost unconsciously leaned a little closer to her and that said breath hitched upon his nearness. Their noses were definitely rubbing against each other now and he could almost feel her lips against his.

"And would you mind terribly if I, um… Acted upon those feelings?" Arthur asked and felt his lips barely graze hers as he spoke.

"Not at all," Sadie told him, her eyelids nearly falling shut with her gaze upon his mouth as her lips parted a bit in anticipation.

But he had to make sure that was what she definitely wanted.

"I'm gonna kiss you now. Is that alright?" She groaned in evident frustration.

"Screw this," she mumbled under her breath before she finally met him in the sweetest of kisses. It was unlike any he had ever had before and would likely remain permanently unparalleled. Well, unless she kissed him again, that is.

Arthur's grasp tightened around her waist, drawing her a bit closer to him. She slid her hand down the back of his head and gripped his neck firmly. Her other hand found itself on his chest as she carefully and deliberately kneaded the muscle beneath her fingertips.

He lightly squeezed in that place just below her waist where she had previously guided him, savoring every moment with the reverence deserved for such a beautiful thing.

"You was sweet on 'im! I knew it!" Karen suddenly exclaimed. Arthur immediately pulled away, a bit embarrassed at being caught because he knew within a _very _short time that his and Sadie's most recent development would be the latest camp gossip.

Arthur looked down at Sadie and almost completely forgot about the humiliation that was surely going to soon be brought down upon them. Her face was lit up in some flame that equally danced between her usual challenging anger and the magnificent sensations that they had enjoyed just a moment ago as she glanced between Karen and him.

After a second, however, she ended up pushing down the flame for him in favor of chewing out Karen.

But not before she gave him a mind-blowing kiss of such intensity that completely blew their first kiss out of the water.

"Yep, we're together. Whatddya got to say 'bout that?" Sadie boldly pushed forward in the conversation as Arthur tried to get his bearings.

Karen glanced between them both, and Arthur could see her suppressing a grin simply because of that humor-filled twinkle in her eye.

"'Bout time."


End file.
